Welcome to MSR sessions in San Antonio!

MSR organizes three sessions:

Two sessions will take place on Sunday 20 Nov:
(1) “Qumran in Mind: Exploring Cognitive Science of Religion and the Dead Sea Scrolls” jointly with Qumran unit, and
(2) an open session.

A third, book review session is on Tuesday 22 Nov:
(3) “New Books on Cognitive and Ritual Approaches to the New Testament and Early Christianity“, jointly with Ritual in the Biblical World unit.

See further details here.

For the 2016 Annual Meeting, (1) we welcome proposals  that address any of the research foci stated in the description of the program unit. Furthermore, two sessions with invited papers are organized. (2) In a joint session with the Qumran Section, speakers will explore how cognitive science of religion theories and perspectives might shed new light on the Qumran texts and how the Qumran evidence might be incorporated into the larger enterprise of making sense of religious behavior in human history. (3) In a joint session with Ritual in the Biblical World Section, a book review session with invited panelists will discuss two new publications: Risto Uro, Ritual and Christian Beginnings, Oxford University Press, 2016 and Istvan Czachesz, Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach, Oxford University Press, 2016.

The dead line for proposals through SBL website is 1 March 2016.

The Mind, Society and Religion in the Biblical World sponsors two sessions in the SBL Annual Meeting, Atlanta, 2015, both taking place on Sun 22 Nov: (1) a general session of four papers, and (2) an invited session on Cooperation, Manipulation, and Violence: Evolutionary Perspectives on Ancient Texts. Note also on Sat 21 Nov the AAR session with primatologist Frans de Waal on Morality Without Religion: Empathy, Fairness, and Prosocial Primates.

See the detailed program under “sessions” on this website.